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Katowice climate talks are making headlines for the wrong reasons

Diogo Baptista/Alamy

ONGOING climate talks in Katowice, Poland, have been making headlines for all the wrong reasons.

The talks are part of continuing efforts to finalise the rules for implementing the 2015 Paris climate agreement. That deal involved each country saying what it was prepared to do up to 2030 to tackle climate change. But despite several meetings since then, the final rules for assessing progress are yet to be agreed. As New Scientist went to press, only modest progress had been made in Katowice.

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What we do know is that a large gap remains between what has been promised and what is needed to achieve the Paris target of limiting warming to well under 2°C. A central idea of the Paris Agreement was that countries would continue to “ramp up” their ambitions on climate action, but there is no sign of significant progress on this in Poland.

The talks, which have received some sponsorship from coal companies, have not been short on controversy. On Monday, the US and Australia held an event to promote “clean” fossil fuels.

A few days earlier, the US, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait blocked an initial effort to endorse the scientific report on how to limit warming to 1.5°C published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in October. Although the report could still be endorsed at the talks, it now appears unlikely. The talks are due to end on 14 December.

This article appeared in print under the headline “Global climate talks”